What are the next disruptions for personal financial services? Are they ready for a full “reset” ? Can they develop new perspectives fast enough and overcome their dogmas? How do we inject out-of-the box thinking and make them work within-the-box? Or can we re-shape the box?

Some interesting examples

iPhone check deposit. The military bank and insurance provider USAA recently launched mobile check-deposit technology, which lets users deposit checks from anywhere using an iPhone. USAA customers take photos of both sides of a check with the phone and transmit the images to the bank, which then verifies and makes the deposit.

An ongoing research at Intel allows PCs to maintain Internet connectivity using an ultra low power Proxy (say, 0.5W). Network Proxy, or ability of a PC to Sleep Talk, is an “energy smarter” way for a PC to maintain Internet network presence at a very low energy footprint.

Our Network Proxy technology, now being standardized at Ecma TC32-TG21, allows PCs to maintain Internet connectivity using an ultra low power Proxy (say, 0.5W). The Network Proxy drastically reduces PC energy footprint (say, less than 1/100th of its max energy usage), while making PC “Always Available” to the network and server applications, and waking PC, when more processing is needed. The PC intelligently wakes up, services the request, and goes back to Sleep automatically. And, it does so reliably and predictably, maintaining the same high-quality user experience.

Received an email today by a colleague that led me to the microsoft secret project: Gizmodo tablet. Gizmodo revealed first details.

Courier is a real device, and we’ve heard that it’s in the “late prototype” stage of development. It’s not a tablet, it’s a booklet. The dual 7-inch (or so) screens are multitouch, and designed for writing, flicking and drawing with a stylus, in addition to fingers. They’re connected by a hinge that holds a single iPhone-esque home button. Statuses, like wireless signal and battery life, are displayed along the rim of one of the screens. On the back cover is a camera, and it might charge through an inductive pad, like the Palm Touchstone charging dock for Pre.

The Courier user experience presented here is almost the exact opposite of what everyone expects the Apple tablet to be, a kung fu eagle claw to Apple’s tiger style. It’s complex: Two screens, a mashup of a pen-dominated interface with several types of multitouch finger gestures, and multiple graphically complex themes, modes and applications. (Our favorite UI bit? The hinge doubles as a “pocket” to hold items you want move from one page to another.) Microsoft’s tablet heritage is digital ink-oriented, and this interface, while unlike anything we’ve seen before, clearly draws from that, its work with the Surface touch computer and even the Zune HD.

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This section is dedicated to open innovation, collaborative, Particpatory Design Projects and Competitions.

NYC BIG APPS
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ITSME O.S
Join a group of designers and developers to design next generation personal computing based on "Stories and Venues" metaphor

Project 10^100
Last fall Google launched Project 10^100, a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible. After over 150,000 submissions from more than 170 countries, 16 inspired finalists emerged and The Big G handed it over to us the people to cull the top 5 who will now move towards realization.

The3Six5 A new blog-project that invites a different, often famous, person to write an entry for each of the 365 days in 2010, essentially crowdsourcing a snapshot of the year.

The Fun Theory Award recognizes those thoughts, ideas and inventions that help prove the fun theory. That fun is the easiest way to change people's behaviour for the better. See example below